GREAT Britain will be looking for optimism on the bike after a challenging 12 months off it when the Track Cycling World Championships take place in Hong Kong this week.
There has been much noise around British Cycling since the last Track World Championships in London, in March 2016.
And while there has been little action on the track, what there has been suggests the wheels have not fallen off – on the bike, at least.
Britain won six out of 10 track titles at the Rio Olympics, were the dominant Paralympic nation on the bike and a new generation showed potential at last November's Track World Cup in Glasgow.
Head coach Iain Dyer said: "It's an unfortunate reflection that the bad news seems to hang around a lot longer than the good news."
The first Track World Championships of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle is about starting afresh.
There is new leadership, with Stephen Park beginning his role in the days prior to the five-day competition and here on a watching and learning brief.
Former sailing chief Park is British Cycling's first performance director in three years, since Sir Dave Brailsford's departure to focus on Team Sky.
Brailsford appeared before a Commons Select Committee in December, four days before Park's appointment was announced, answering questions on the ongoing UK Anti-Doping investigation into allegations of wrongdoing in cycling. Brailsford admits mistakes were made but denies wrongdoing.
The independent review into the 'culture' of British Cycling's world-class performance programme is still to report, more than 11 months after it was established in the wake of discrimination allegations against former technical director Shane Sutton, which he denies.
British Cycling has begun addressing the anticipated findings of the review, with further scrutiny sure to be heaped upon the national governing body and its practices, past and present, when it is finally published.
Park, Dyer and others will aim to ensure those will not be a distraction for the 19 riders who have travelled to Hong Kong looking to the future.
The household names are absent. Sir Bradley Wiggins – who denies wrongdoing after becoming embroiled in the UKAD investigation – and Joanna Rowsell-Shand have retired.
Six-time Olympic champion Jason Kenny is taking an extended break following his third Games. So, too, is his wife Laura Kenny (nee Trott), who is pregnant.
Ed Clancy, Phil Hindes and Becky James are on breaks, while Owain Doull is beginning a road career and Mark Cavendish has returned to his.
Sprint coach Justin Grace, meanwhile, is continuing his gradual recovery following a liver transplant.
Victoria Pendleton's status as the only Olympic champion to successfully retain an individual world title the following year will remain unchallenged.
Pendleton won Olympic sprint gold in Beijing and world titles in Manchester and Pruszkow, Poland, either side.
Pendleton said: "That's the only thing to my name that no-one else has done yet – that Chris Hoy hasn't done!
"I think I was a bit crazy to do it. It was probably one of the hardest titles I've ever won."
Four Olympic gold medallists are in the British squad in Hong Kong: Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Steven Burke and Callum Skinner. Additionally, Katy Marchant is an Olympic bronze medallist.
The quartet won gold medals in team events, but only Burke will prioritise the team event in Hong Kong.
Wednesday's first day of action sees qualifying in the team pursuits and medals in the team sprints and women's scratch race, where Barker is set to get an individual opportunity.
Jack Carlin, Ryan Owens and Joe Truman have two Track World Cup gold medals this season and could triumph in the three-man, three-lap team sprint in which Skinner is an Olympic champion.
Britain have won the last three Olympics in the discipline, but curiously have no world title since 2005.
There is no women's team sprint squad as Marchant is the only female sprinter to have travelled.
It was when Marchant and Jess Varnish failed to qualify for Rio that the British Cycling system first met major questions.
The answers are still to be provided, but it is hoped the focus will switch to the bike this week.
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